Laravel Sail
- Introduction
- Installation and Setup
- Starting and Stopping Sail
- Executing Commands
- Interacting With Databases
- File Storage
- Running Tests
- Previewing Emails
- Container CLI
- PHP Versions
- Node Versions
- Sharing Your Site
- Debugging With Xdebug
- Customization
Introduction
Laravel Sail is a light-weight command-line interface for interacting with Laravel's default Docker development environment. Sail provides a great starting point for building a Laravel application using PHP, MySQL, and Redis without requiring prior Docker experience.
At its heart, Sail is the docker-compose.yml
file and the sail
script that is stored at the root of your project. The sail
script provides a CLI with convenient methods for interacting with the Docker containers defined by the docker-compose.yml
file.
Laravel Sail is supported on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL2).
Installation and Setup
Laravel Sail is automatically installed with all new Laravel applications so you may start using it immediately. To learn how to create a new Laravel application, please consult Laravel's installation documentation for your operating system. During installation, you will be asked to choose which Sail supported services your application will be interacting with.
Installing Sail Into Existing Applications
If you are interested in using Sail with an existing Laravel application, you may simply install Sail using the Composer package manager. Of course, these steps assume that your existing local development environment allows you to install Composer dependencies:
1composer require laravel/sail --dev
1composer require laravel/sail --dev
After Sail has been installed, you may run the sail:install
Artisan command. This command will publish Sail's docker-compose.yml
file to the root of your application and modify your .env
file with the required environment variables in order to connect to the Docker services:
1php artisan sail:install
1php artisan sail:install
Finally, you may start Sail. To continue learning how to use Sail, please continue reading the remainder of this documentation:
1./vendor/bin/sail up
1./vendor/bin/sail up
If you are using Docker Desktop for Linux, you should use the default
Docker context by executing the following command: docker context use default
.
Adding Additional Services
If you would like to add an additional service to your existing Sail installation, you may run the sail:add
Artisan command:
1php artisan sail:add
1php artisan sail:add
Using Devcontainers
If you would like to develop within a Devcontainer, you may provide the --devcontainer
option to the sail:install
command. The --devcontainer
option will instruct the sail:install
command to publish a default .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
file to the root of your application:
1php artisan sail:install --devcontainer
1php artisan sail:install --devcontainer
Rebuilding Sail Images
Sometimes you may want to completely rebuild your Sail images to ensure all of the image's packages and software are up to date. You may accomplish this using the build
command:
1docker compose down -v23sail build --no-cache45sail up
1docker compose down -v23sail build --no-cache45sail up
Configuring A Shell Alias
By default, Sail commands are invoked using the vendor/bin/sail
script that is included with all new Laravel applications:
1./vendor/bin/sail up
1./vendor/bin/sail up
However, instead of repeatedly typing vendor/bin/sail
to execute Sail commands, you may wish to configure a shell alias that allows you to execute Sail's commands more easily:
1alias sail='sh $([ -f sail ] && echo sail || echo vendor/bin/sail)'
1alias sail='sh $([ -f sail ] && echo sail || echo vendor/bin/sail)'
To make sure this is always available, you may add this to your shell configuration file in your home directory, such as ~/.zshrc
or ~/.bashrc
, and then restart your shell.
Once the shell alias has been configured, you may execute Sail commands by simply typing sail
. The remainder of this documentation's examples will assume that you have configured this alias:
1sail up
1sail up
Starting and Stopping Sail
Laravel Sail's docker-compose.yml
file defines a variety of Docker containers that work together to help you build Laravel applications. Each of these containers is an entry within the services
configuration of your docker-compose.yml
file. The laravel.test
container is the primary application container that will be serving your application.
Before starting Sail, you should ensure that no other web servers or databases are running on your local computer. To start all of the Docker containers defined in your application's docker-compose.yml
file, you should execute the up
command:
1sail up
1sail up
To start all of the Docker containers in the background, you may start Sail in "detached" mode:
1sail up -d
1sail up -d
Once the application's containers have been started, you may access the project in your web browser at: http://localhost.
To stop all of the containers, you may simply press Control + C to stop the container's execution. Or, if the containers are running in the background, you may use the stop
command:
1sail stop
1sail stop
Executing Commands
When using Laravel Sail, your application is executing within a Docker container and is isolated from your local computer. However, Sail provides a convenient way to run various commands against your application such as arbitrary PHP commands, Artisan commands, Composer commands, and Node / NPM commands.
When reading the Laravel documentation, you will often see references to Composer, Artisan, and Node / NPM commands that do not reference Sail. Those examples assume that these tools are installed on your local computer. If you are using Sail for your local Laravel development environment, you should execute those commands using Sail:
1# Running Artisan commands locally...2php artisan queue:work34# Running Artisan commands within Laravel Sail...5sail artisan queue:work
1# Running Artisan commands locally...2php artisan queue:work34# Running Artisan commands within Laravel Sail...5sail artisan queue:work
Executing PHP Commands
PHP commands may be executed using the php
command. Of course, these commands will execute using the PHP version that is configured for your application. To learn more about the PHP versions available to Laravel Sail, consult the PHP version documentation:
1sail php --version23sail php script.php
1sail php --version23sail php script.php
Executing Composer Commands
Composer commands may be executed using the composer
command. Laravel Sail's application container includes a Composer installation:
1sail composer require laravel/sanctum
1sail composer require laravel/sanctum
Installing Composer Dependencies for Existing Applications
If you are developing an application with a team, you may not be the one that initially creates the Laravel application. Therefore, none of the application's Composer dependencies, including Sail, will be installed after you clone the application's repository to your local computer.
You may install the application's dependencies by navigating to the application's directory and executing the following command. This command uses a small Docker container containing PHP and Composer to install the application's dependencies:
1docker run --rm \2 -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \3 -v "$(pwd):/var/www/html" \4 -w /var/www/html \5 laravelsail/php83-composer:latest \6 composer install --ignore-platform-reqs
1docker run --rm \2 -u "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \3 -v "$(pwd):/var/www/html" \4 -w /var/www/html \5 laravelsail/php83-composer:latest \6 composer install --ignore-platform-reqs
When using the laravelsail/phpXX-composer
image, you should use the same version of PHP that you plan to use for your application (80
, 81
, 82
, or 83
).
Executing Artisan Commands
Laravel Artisan commands may be executed using the artisan
command:
1sail artisan queue:work
1sail artisan queue:work
Executing Node / NPM Commands
Node commands may be executed using the node
command while NPM commands may be executed using the npm
command:
1sail node --version23sail npm run dev
1sail node --version23sail npm run dev
If you wish, you may use Yarn instead of NPM:
1sail yarn
1sail yarn
Interacting With Databases
MySQL
As you may have noticed, your application's docker-compose.yml
file contains an entry for a MySQL container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your database is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers.
In addition, the first time the MySQL container starts, it will create two databases for you. The first database is named using the value of your DB_DATABASE
environment variable and is for your local development. The second is a dedicated testing database named testing
and will ensure that your tests do not interfere with your development data.
Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the MySQL instance within your application by setting your DB_HOST
environment variable within your application's .env
file to mysql
.
To connect to your application's MySQL database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the MySQL database is accessible at localhost
port 3306 and the access credentials correspond to the values of your DB_USERNAME
and DB_PASSWORD
environment variables. Or, you may connect as the root
user, which also utilizes the value of your DB_PASSWORD
environment variable as its password.
MongoDB
If you chose to install the MongoDB service when installing Sail, your application's docker-compose.yml
file contains an entry for a MongoDB Atlas Local container which provides the MongoDB document database with Atlas features like Search Indexes. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your database is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers.
Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the MongoDB instance within your application by setting your MONGODB_URI
environment variable within your application's .env
file to mongodb://mongodb:27017
. Authentication is disabled by default, but you can set the MONGODB_USERNAME
and MONGODB_PASSWORD
environment variables to enable authentication before starting the mongodb
container. Then, add the credentials to the connection string:
1MONGODB_USERNAME=user2MONGODB_PASSWORD=laravel3MONGODB_URI=mongodb://${MONGODB_USERNAME}:${MONGODB_PASSWORD}@mongodb:27017
1MONGODB_USERNAME=user2MONGODB_PASSWORD=laravel3MONGODB_URI=mongodb://${MONGODB_USERNAME}:${MONGODB_PASSWORD}@mongodb:27017
For seamless integration of MongoDB with your application, you can install the official package maintained by MongoDB.
To connect to your application's MongoDB database from your local machine, you may use a graphical interface such as Compass. By default, the MongoDB database is accessible at localhost
port 27017
.
Redis
Your application's docker-compose.yml
file also contains an entry for a Redis container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your Redis data is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the Redis instance within your application by setting your REDIS_HOST
environment variable within your application's .env
file to redis
.
To connect to your application's Redis database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the Redis database is accessible at localhost
port 6379.
Meilisearch
If you chose to install the Meilisearch service when installing Sail, your application's docker-compose.yml
file will contain an entry for this powerful search engine that is integrated with Laravel Scout. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the Meilisearch instance within your application by setting your MEILISEARCH_HOST
environment variable to http://meilisearch:7700
.
From your local machine, you may access Meilisearch's web based administration panel by navigating to http://localhost:7700
in your web browser.
Typesense
If you chose to install the Typesense service when installing Sail, your application's docker-compose.yml
file will contain an entry for this lightning fast, open-source search engine that is natively integrated with Laravel Scout. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the Typesense instance within your application by setting the following environment variables:
1TYPESENSE_HOST=typesense2TYPESENSE_PORT=81083TYPESENSE_PROTOCOL=http4TYPESENSE_API_KEY=xyz
1TYPESENSE_HOST=typesense2TYPESENSE_PORT=81083TYPESENSE_PROTOCOL=http4TYPESENSE_API_KEY=xyz
From your local machine, you may access Typesense's API via http://localhost:8108
.
File Storage
If you plan to use Amazon S3 to store files while running your application in its production environment, you may wish to install the MinIO service when installing Sail. MinIO provides an S3 compatible API that you may use to develop locally using Laravel's s3
file storage driver without creating "test" storage buckets in your production S3 environment. If you choose to install MinIO while installing Sail, a MinIO configuration section will be added to your application's docker-compose.yml
file.
By default, your application's filesystems
configuration file already contains a disk configuration for the s3
disk. In addition to using this disk to interact with Amazon S3, you may use it to interact with any S3 compatible file storage service such as MinIO by simply modifying the associated environment variables that control its configuration. For example, when using MinIO, your filesystem environment variable configuration should be defined as follows:
1FILESYSTEM_DISK=s32AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=sail3AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=password4AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-15AWS_BUCKET=local6AWS_ENDPOINT=http://minio:90007AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=true
1FILESYSTEM_DISK=s32AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=sail3AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=password4AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-15AWS_BUCKET=local6AWS_ENDPOINT=http://minio:90007AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=true
In order for Laravel's Flysystem integration to generate proper URLs when using MinIO, you should define the AWS_URL
environment variable so that it matches your application's local URL and includes the bucket name in the URL path:
1AWS_URL=http://localhost:9000/local
1AWS_URL=http://localhost:9000/local
You may create buckets via the MinIO console, which is available at http://localhost:8900
. The default username for the MinIO console is sail
while the default password is password
.
Generating temporary storage URLs via the temporaryUrl
method is not supported when using MinIO.
Running Tests
Laravel provides amazing testing support out of the box, and you may use Sail's test
command to run your applications feature and unit tests. Any CLI options that are accepted by Pest / PHPUnit may also be passed to the test
command:
1sail test23sail test --group orders
1sail test23sail test --group orders
The Sail test
command is equivalent to running the test
Artisan command:
1sail artisan test
1sail artisan test
By default, Sail will create a dedicated testing
database so that your tests do not interfere with the current state of your database. In a default Laravel installation, Sail will also configure your phpunit.xml
file to use this database when executing your tests:
1<env name="DB_DATABASE" value="testing"/>
1<env name="DB_DATABASE" value="testing"/>
Laravel Dusk
Laravel Dusk provides an expressive, easy-to-use browser automation and testing API. Thanks to Sail, you may run these tests without ever installing Selenium or other tools on your local computer. To get started, uncomment the Selenium service in your application's docker-compose.yml
file:
1selenium:2 image: 'selenium/standalone-chrome'3 extra_hosts:4 - 'host.docker.internal:host-gateway'5 volumes:6 - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'7 networks:8 - sail
1selenium:2 image: 'selenium/standalone-chrome'3 extra_hosts:4 - 'host.docker.internal:host-gateway'5 volumes:6 - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'7 networks:8 - sail
Next, ensure that the laravel.test
service in your application's docker-compose.yml
file has a depends_on
entry for selenium
:
1depends_on:2 - mysql3 - redis4 - selenium
1depends_on:2 - mysql3 - redis4 - selenium
Finally, you may run your Dusk test suite by starting Sail and running the dusk
command:
1sail dusk
1sail dusk
Selenium on Apple Silicon
If your local machine contains an Apple Silicon chip, your selenium
service must use the selenium/standalone-chromium
image:
1selenium:2 image: 'selenium/standalone-chromium'3 extra_hosts:4 - 'host.docker.internal:host-gateway'5 volumes:6 - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'7 networks:8 - sail
1selenium:2 image: 'selenium/standalone-chromium'3 extra_hosts:4 - 'host.docker.internal:host-gateway'5 volumes:6 - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'7 networks:8 - sail
Previewing Emails
Laravel Sail's default docker-compose.yml
file contains a service entry for Mailpit. Mailpit intercepts emails sent by your application during local development and provides a convenient web interface so that you can preview your email messages in your browser. When using Sail, Mailpit's default host is mailpit
and is available via port 1025:
1MAIL_HOST=mailpit2MAIL_PORT=10253MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null
1MAIL_HOST=mailpit2MAIL_PORT=10253MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null
When Sail is running, you may access the Mailpit web interface at: http://localhost:8025
Container CLI
Sometimes you may wish to start a Bash session within your application's container. You may use the shell
command to connect to your application's container, allowing you to inspect its files and installed services as well as execute arbitrary shell commands within the container:
1sail shell23sail root-shell
1sail shell23sail root-shell
To start a new Laravel Tinker session, you may execute the tinker
command:
1sail tinker
1sail tinker
PHP Versions
Sail currently supports serving your application via PHP 8.4, 8.3, 8.2, 8.1, or PHP 8.0. The default PHP version used by Sail is currently PHP 8.3. To change the PHP version that is used to serve your application, you should update the build
definition of the laravel.test
container in your application's docker-compose.yml
file:
1# PHP 8.42context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.434# PHP 8.35context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.367# PHP 8.28context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.2910# PHP 8.111context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.11213# PHP 8.014context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.0
1# PHP 8.42context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.434# PHP 8.35context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.367# PHP 8.28context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.2910# PHP 8.111context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.11213# PHP 8.014context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.0
In addition, you may wish to update your image
name to reflect the version of PHP being used by your application. This option is also defined in your application's docker-compose.yml
file:
1image: sail-8.2/app
1image: sail-8.2/app
After updating your application's docker-compose.yml
file, you should rebuild your container images:
1sail build --no-cache23sail up
1sail build --no-cache23sail up
Node Versions
Sail installs Node 20 by default. To change the Node version that is installed when building your images, you may update the build.args
definition of the laravel.test
service in your application's docker-compose.yml
file:
1build:2 args:3 WWWGROUP: '${WWWGROUP}'4 NODE_VERSION: '18'
1build:2 args:3 WWWGROUP: '${WWWGROUP}'4 NODE_VERSION: '18'
After updating your application's docker-compose.yml
file, you should rebuild your container images:
1sail build --no-cache23sail up
1sail build --no-cache23sail up
Sharing Your Site
Sometimes you may need to share your site publicly in order to preview your site for a colleague or to test webhook integrations with your application. To share your site, you may use the share
command. After executing this command, you will be issued a random laravel-sail.site
URL that you may use to access your application:
1sail share
1sail share
When sharing your site via the share
command, you should configure your application's trusted proxies using the trustProxies
middleware method in your application's bootstrap/app.php
file. Otherwise, URL generation helpers such as url
and route
will be unable to determine the correct HTTP host that should be used during URL generation:
1->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {2 $middleware->trustProxies(at: '*');3})
1->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {2 $middleware->trustProxies(at: '*');3})
If you would like to choose the subdomain for your shared site, you may provide the subdomain
option when executing the share
command:
1sail share --subdomain=my-sail-site
1sail share --subdomain=my-sail-site
The share
command is powered by Expose, an open source tunneling service by BeyondCode.
Debugging With Xdebug
Laravel Sail's Docker configuration includes support for Xdebug, a popular and powerful debugger for PHP. In order to enable Xdebug, you will need to add a few variables to your application's .env
file to configure Xdebug. To enable Xdebug you must set the appropriate mode(s) before starting Sail:
1SAIL_XDEBUG_MODE=develop,debug,coverage
1SAIL_XDEBUG_MODE=develop,debug,coverage
Linux Host IP Configuration
Internally, the XDEBUG_CONFIG
environment variable is defined as client_host=host.docker.internal
so that Xdebug will be properly configured for Mac and Windows (WSL2). If your local machine is running Linux and you're using Docker 20.10+, host.docker.internal
is available, and no manual configuration is required.
For Docker versions older than 20.10, host.docker.internal
is not supported on Linux, and you will need to manually define the host IP. To do this, configure a static IP for your container by defining a custom network in your docker-compose.yml
file:
1networks:2 custom_network:3 ipam:4 config:5 - subnet: 172.20.0.0/1667services:8 laravel.test:9 networks:10 custom_network:11 ipv4_address: 172.20.0.2
1networks:2 custom_network:3 ipam:4 config:5 - subnet: 172.20.0.0/1667services:8 laravel.test:9 networks:10 custom_network:11 ipv4_address: 172.20.0.2
Once you have set the static IP, define the SAIL_XDEBUG_CONFIG variable within your application's .env file:
1SAIL_XDEBUG_CONFIG="client_host=172.20.0.2"
1SAIL_XDEBUG_CONFIG="client_host=172.20.0.2"
Xdebug CLI Usage
A sail debug
command may be used to start a debugging session when running an Artisan command:
1# Run an Artisan command without Xdebug...2sail artisan migrate34# Run an Artisan command with Xdebug...5sail debug migrate
1# Run an Artisan command without Xdebug...2sail artisan migrate34# Run an Artisan command with Xdebug...5sail debug migrate
Xdebug Browser Usage
To debug your application while interacting with the application via a web browser, follow the instructions provided by Xdebug for initiating an Xdebug session from the web browser.
If you're using PhpStorm, please review JetBrains' documentation regarding zero-configuration debugging.
Laravel Sail relies on artisan serve
to serve your application. The artisan serve
command only accepts the XDEBUG_CONFIG
and XDEBUG_MODE
variables as of Laravel version 8.53.0. Older versions of Laravel (8.52.0 and below) do not support these variables and will not accept debug connections.
Customization
Since Sail is just Docker, you are free to customize nearly everything about it. To publish Sail's own Dockerfiles, you may execute the sail:publish
command:
1sail artisan sail:publish
1sail artisan sail:publish
After running this command, the Dockerfiles and other configuration files used by Laravel Sail will be placed within a docker
directory in your application's root directory. After customizing your Sail installation, you may wish to change the image name for the application container in your application's docker-compose.yml
file. After doing so, rebuild your application's containers using the build
command. Assigning a unique name to the application image is particularly important if you are using Sail to develop multiple Laravel applications on a single machine:
1sail build --no-cache
1sail build --no-cache